November 02, 2009

Too much, too little, and often in the wrong place

It rose out of the omnipresent sand of a natural island, and there remains a
thin layer of the ocher substance almost everywhere: on the canopied
grandstands, on the brilliantly lighted hotel at the edge of the track, on the
seats and in just about every corner of the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu
Dhabi.

So went the start of a New York Times article on yesterday's finale to the
Formula One Grand Prix season. Small armies of workers were sweeping the sand
right up to the last minute and yet, as The Walrus and The Carpenter observed,
it's essentially an impossible task. Holding an extravaganza of highly
sophisticated but delicate technology in this kind of environment brings many
challenges. As the article went on to comment

It may play havoc with the engines of the cars and it will change the grip,
lap by lap, for the drivers, even affect the lenses and other camera mechanisms
belonging to the hundreds of photographers and journalists who will document the
final race

For races in neighbouring Bahrain, it's long been a problem, as explained by
Red Bull’s technical director Gunther Steiner:

You have to be aware that it can get in to every part of the car. It
literally sandblasts the car every time it goes on track and gradually erodes
all the surfaces and the cooling fins on the radiators.

Unique measures are taken to protect exposed suspension and other parts of
the cars, and specially designed air filters have to be used. And then there's
the problem with grip and tyre selection - after all, a motor race in which the
drivers have to go slowly in order to stay on the track - and avoid whole
sections of it because it's covered in sand - detracts somewhat from the
sporting attraction. David Coulthard, the now-retired driver, was quoted before
the race as saying

It does seem to be very sandy. When I followed a car the amount of stuff
coming out the back was incredible. What that does is two things: one, it makes
the driver pay the price if he goes a bit off line, which is good because it
favours ability, but it is also makes people not want to take the risk in
overtaking. Sand on your tyre takes a good lap to be cleared
out.

And so it proved. It was largely a risk-avoidance race with drivers clearly
sticking very closely to a single driving "line," conspicuously steering clear
of the rest of the track - and often running into problems when they didn't.
Grains of sand influencing a sporting spectacle and, as The Times Online
concluded, "Whoever wins the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday will
be fêted in a nation that can afford to buy its heroes — but the victorious
driver might feel his name is not written in history, but in the sand."

But if the sport was less than inspiring, the setting made up for it. This
was the inaugural race at Abu Dhabi's latest example of construction
extravagance. Ras Island, just down the coast from the preposterous artificial
island developments of Dubai, was but a sandy expanse a mere 30 months ago (see
the Google Earth image at left of the image at the head of this post). It hardly
seems to have been a natural island, but rather 25 square kilometers of coastal
desert, sandbanks, and sabhka (salt flats) carved out and isolated from the
mainland by manmade waterways. After several tens of billions of dollars, and
the efforts of tens of thousands of workers, things have changed. The image
below is of the hotel complex across the track (as night falls, as it did for
the Grand Prix, the whole thing glows in a succession of changing colours) and
at the right in the image at the top is the way the whole place will look when
finished.

The strange red object in the centre of the header image is "Ferrari World," the largest indoor
theme park on the planet, "like a megalomaniac’s pleasure dome" in the words of
the NYT. Yas Island will boast 20 hotels, 3 theme parks, a "Super Regional
mall", golf courses, several marinas, and commercial and residential
developments. You can read the full specs at the developer's website, but
in case you don't here's a sampling of the exuberance on this "island of
dreams":

There will be a Super Regional Mall that will house famous retail brands
fromaround the world in over 500 stores and 4 floors including lifestyle,
fashion &boutiques.• There will also be room for a complete town
centre concept, contained in anumber of adjacent buildings and built under a
88,100m2 roof• The Yas Mall will have one of the largest free standing roofs
in the world,showcasing 296,000m2 of the world’s best retail space•
Adjoining the Yas Mall will be will be Abu Dhabi’s first Multi-purpose
RetailPark (100,000m2)• Three major department stores will be
accommodated.• A large hypermarket covering an area of 17,000
m2

What I have not been able to determine is how much concrete goes into this
monster (one hotel used 45,000 cubic metres of it, the racetrack 225,000) or,
indeed, where all the sand came from for that concrete; presumably, as in
neighbouring Dubai, local sources of non-desert sand were used (the windblown
stuff being too rounded and smooth for good concrete), and the local natural
sand budgets consequently profoundly changed. But it's not just the natural sand
budgets. Although sand prices around the world have fallen during the economic
crisis, they peaked in 2007 at more than $40 per ton, and sand supplies were
becoming difficult. The Economist recently ran an article (pleasingly
titled "The hourglass effect") that began:

“LOOKING for sea-sand for reclamation project in Singapore. Prompt reply is
greatly appreciated.” Many such pleas can be found on Alibaba.com, a popular
Chinese trading-website. Malaysia banned sand exports as long ago as 1997.
Indonesia followed suit in 2007 on environmental and, some say, political
grounds. Ever since, it has become harder for Singapore to secure supplies for
its booming construction industry and sea-fill plans.

Singapore has turned to Cambodia and then Vietnam for its sand, but both have
now banned exports. It seems that Myanmar may be the replacement supplier, so I
will see my favourite material propping up, through, of course, western
contractors, a loathsome dictatorship. The need is clear for a more widespread
development and use of advanced forms of concrete that not only use less sand,
but also can be manufactured without the associated emissions. And considering
that every man, woman, and child on the planet "consumes" forty times their own
weight in concrete every year, the sooner the better.

And finally, still on sand budgets and still in the news, today's
Guardian newspaper carries a piece titled "Tide turns again for Cancún
in shifting sands row." The 800,000 cubic metres of sand that were used to
replace beaches washed away by Hurricane Wilma a few years ago lasted only a few
months, and the current project is only the latest in a series of failed
attempts at beach nourishment.

A huge project to replenish eroded beaches in Mexico's main Caribbean coastal
resorts, including Cancún, has been suspended after legal action by
environmentalists.

Campaigners claim the $75m (£45m) plan – involving taking 6.2m cubic metres
from a sandbank just off Cozumel island, 50 miles from Cancún, to hotel beaches
– is based on incomplete assessments.

Critics say dredging the sandbank will alter currents and damage ecosystems,
including coral reefs and breeding grounds for species such as the queen conch.
They also fear Cozumel will become more vulnerable to hurricanes. "It's absurd.
We understand it is necessary to fill out the beaches but it needs to be done
without sacrificing other places," said Alejandra Serrano of the Mexican Centre
for Environmental Law.

But Rodrigo de la Pena, president of the Hotel Association, criticised the
delay: "We cannot sell ourselves as a place of sun and sand, if we don't have
the sand."

Alejandra Serrano is right - it's absurd. But then so many things are,
including much of what I've just written about .....